There’s a whole gamut of financial and investment books out there. Many are designed to be simply sensational. For example, Dow 36,000, published during the dot-com euphoria, predicted that United States Dow Jones Index would touch 36,000 within a few years. The index has just crossed the milestone after 13 years. Ravi Batra had written a book called The Great Depression of 1990. Pete Peterson had great credentials as a financial and economic expert. In 1993, he wrote a book called Facing Up: How to Rescue the Economy from Crushing Debt and Restore the American Dream, which gave an extremely pessimistic forecast of the American economy. Both proved to be horribly wrong. The debt disappeared and the US had a period of strong prosperity.

The lesson is gloom and doom sells and people naturally gravitate to it. Books like these target our inherent insecurities. Larry Swedroe, a top investment expert (whose book The Quest for Alpha was reviewed in Moneylife), says, “What most people fail to recognize is that many authors aren’t really in the information business. Instead, they are in the fame business.” Many savers buy it, believe it, worry endlessly and, as a result, alter their financial plans which hurt their financial future. Swedroe advises: “Treat doom-and-gloom books just like the rest of the investment porn industry, and not let it affect their investment plans.”

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Passing an interim order, a COMPAT bench asked 11 cement producers along with their lobby group Cement Manufacturer’s Association (CMA) to pay around Rs630 crore within a month

The Competition Appellate Tribunal (COMPAT) today directed cement companies to pay 10% of a Rs6,307 crore penalty imposed on them by fair trade regulator CCI for forming cartel in the sector.

Passing an interim order, a COMPAT bench headed by its chairman justice VS Sirpurkar asked 11 cement producers along with their lobby group Cement Manufacturer’s Association (CMA) to pay around Rs630 crore within a month.

The tribunal also clarified that if the cement firms fail to deposit the amount within a 30 days time-frame, their petition would be dismissed.

The matter would now come up for final hearing in August. COMPAT had reserved its order over a batch of petitions filed by various cement producers and CMA on 18th March this year after hearing them on interim plea.

In the petitions, the cement producers had challenged the Rs6,307 crore penalty imposed on them by the CCI and the Rs73 lakh fine imposed on the CMA.

“The act and conduct of the cement companies establish that they are a cartel. The Commission holds that the cement companies acting together have limited, controlled and also attempted to control the production and price in the market in India,” CCI had said in its 258-page order.

CCI had found “cement manufacturers in violation of the provisions of the Competition Act, 2002, which deals with anti-competitive agreements, including cartels”. The order was passed following probe by CCI Director General (Investigation) on a complaint filed by Builders Association.